which morally obligate us to act. For Mackie and the Error Theorists, such properties do not exist in the world, and therefore, morality conceived of by reference to objective facts must also not exist. Therefore, morality in the traditional sense does not exist.

However, holding nihilism does not necessarily imply that one should give up using moral or ethical language; some nihilists contend that it remains a useful tool. In fact Mackie and other contemporary defenders of error theory, such as Richard Joyce,